


coda

by Sparrows



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, character death mentioned due to the timeframe involved, i'm not really sure what happened here?, keyleth seeks closure and doesn't really find it, this was supposed to be short, written at 4am so don't expect miracles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:37:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9496028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrows/pseuds/Sparrows
Summary: It it brings her no satisfaction, to stand as the last of Vox Machina before the remains of the last of the Conclave, sisters in that and nothing more.One thousand years later, Keyleth returns to an island.





	

The centuries have been relatively kind to Keyleth. She has lost so many of her friends - Percy and Grog merely the first to go, followed by Vex, Vax, even the gnomes eventually - but here she stands, over a thousand years old and barely needing the assistance of her staff to pick her way over the rocky ground.

The isle of Opash, nameless and forgotten by Exandria at large, has mostly rotted and faded over the years. Vox Machina had never returned here after they left, preferring not to go near an island so soaked in necromancy and death; Keyleth has considered it, once or twice, but there had always been other things to do with her time.

Exandria is different, a thousand years down the line. The cities are busier, sprawling, more technologically advanced than Keyleth could ever have imagined in her adventuring days. They're the sort of places she thinks Percy might have been proud of. The thought no longer carries the pain it once might have, instead bringing with it a wistful melancholy, a brief ache like the sensation of prodding at an old bruise.

Enough of those thoughts - easily distracted even these days, Keyleth scolds herself, grumbling as she navigates a gnarled root. Exandria has changed, but this island has not. Rather, nature has been left to run free and wild here, the living world rushing in to fill the bloodied void torn in the world by the ancient necromancy. The trees stand many times taller than Keyleth, thick and steady and strong; vines drape from the canopy and flowers burst in vibrant shades across every spare inch of foliage.

It's beautiful but still, in its own way, lifeless: though flora may have overtaken the island, Keyleth neither sees nor hears a single animal as she makes her way towards the half-crumbled ruin at the island's heart.

The necromancer's lair had been old even when Vox Machina had visited it last, and she half-assumes it will have collapsed in on itself, nothing more than a pile of old stone. She's surprised, then, to find it still-standing, the structure weathered but still seemingly intact. Keyleth pauses at the doorway, feeling the warmth of the sun on her back and a subterranean chill on her front. She takes a deep breath and walks inside, the repetitive clunk-shuffle-clunk-shuffle of her staff and steps the only sound that follows.

As she'd hoped, a thousand years has proven enough to disarm the traps. Keyleth makes her way down through the winding halls, humming a melody as she goes. At last, she makes it to the final door and stops just outside, gripping the Spire of Conflux in both hands and leaning heavily against it a moment.

She has come this far. She can keep going.

Keyleth steps into the final chamber of Opash's ruin and immediately feels a shiver prickle along her skin. This room hasn't changed in a thousand years, like some kind of stasis has settled into every crack in the stone walls. It feels a little like walking into a tomb; not entirely inaccurate, really.

As she nears the fork in the room, Keyleth's foot nudges against something on the floor. With minor creaking from her back and knees she kneels down and scoops it up from the floor, standing as she inspects the little thing in her hands. Scanlan's carved onyx mastiff sits in the curve of her palm, the smooth surface chipped and flawed by the passing centuries. Keyleth smiles a little, turning it over in her hand; even she can sense that the magic the statuette once held has long since faded.

Keyleth slips the onyx dog into her pocket and steps around the corner. She feels her heart, old and scarred and hopefully wiser than before, skip a beat in her chest.

It would be too much to hope for, that decay had taken Raishan's bones. Instead it feels like the opposite has happened, against impossible odds; the flora of the surface have no foothold in Opash's ruins and yet here it is, nature reclaiming the wreckage of a corpse. Roots curl and twine along ancient bones. Flowers, pale and delicate and somehow present without daylight, bloom in clusters in the hollows formed where one bone meets another. Leaves glimmer like a replacement of the dragon's long-lost scales.

"It's been a long time," Keyleth says, her voice cracking a little - she hasn't had need of speech since leaving Zephrah for this journey. She wets her lips and tries again. "I told you this would be your final resting place." A small, grim curl of satisfaction blooms in the pit of Keyleth's gut, tempered by the rusted trace of blood still smeared along the stone. A dark reminder of what they had nearly lost that day.

Closure. That was what Keyleth had hoped for, coming back here after so long. And yet she feels no better, no lighter for it; it brings her no satisfaction, to stand as the last of Vox Machina before the remains of the last of the Conclave, sisters in that and nothing more.

"The fire Ashari", Keyleth says suddenly, the words springing from her unbidden. "You wouldn't think, looking at Pyrah, that - that they'd suffered so long ago. They're thriving all over the volcano now." She smiles, the expression soft and sad, letting it drop until she's frowning again. "I still haven't forgiven you. It's been centuries. I don't think I know how."

Percy would have known. Vex would have known. Keyleth twists her hands around the Spire, sighing heavily. "I don't really know what to say," she finishes weakly, staring at Raishan's bones. "I sort of hoped I'd come up with something on the way here."

Even in death, it feels like Raishan is judging her. Keyleth lowers her staff, stepping forward until she's close enough that she can reach out to press a hand to the pitted, long-since-yellowed bone of Raishan's ribcage, using the surface as leverage to lean down. From the tangle of roots and leaves clustered around the aborted slope of the dragon's spine, Keyleth's hand retrieves one thing: a scale, deep and lustrous green, untouched by time.

It burns and blackens in Keyleth's grip, her fingers tightening until it buckles, shattering into ash that sprays from Keyleth's clenched fist. She doesn't feel better. She feels... hollow. Empty.

Keyleth leaves the ruin the same way she came, and it feels like a ghost follows her the whole way out.


End file.
